If you look at the old movies from the 40’s and 50’s, the typical RC priest was portrayed as a kindly, selfless , dedicated man, who loved kids and went out of his way to help the unfortunate. Growing,up, I thought that most of them were like Bing Crosby in “THE BELLS of St. Marys”. Now, the recent scandals have revealed a shocking number of perverts who abused their positions as priests-some of these criminals had abused hundreds of children.
My question: is the Church ever going to get behind this? Or does it take 2-3 gebnerations to undo the damage that a handful of extremely evil men have done?
Perhaps when they finally acknowledge that there is a real problem and deal with it directly-rather than blaming liberal Catholics for their influence, saying it’s their fault.
While there are certainly a shocking number of perverts who abused their positions (even one would be a shocking number), in my experience, every priest I knew (and there were and are a lot – I spent my whole educational life in the Catholic school system) was a “kindly, selfless, dedicated man.” While the pervs have a lot to answer for, they are a small number of the total number of priests. Their sin is compounded by the fact that, in addition to the harm they did to particular children, they gave scandal to the faithful (which means, in Catholic terminology, their actions caused the faithful, or not so faithful, to doubt their faith and fall away from the Church).
It will take a long time for the Church to undo the damage, but it will. The Pope has told the American bishops in no uncertain terms that they must repair the damage, and the bishops are doing a lot to do just that.
I dunno. You look at Quebec where the RC church went from being the dominant social and political force to being nothing in the sixties, and still has no impact on what people think and do, and you see that it can take generations to regain dominance.
But I don’t think it will. There are too many people who think the RC church is just out of touch with modern life. When the current crop of worshippers die off, they may not be replaced…
Isn’t the Roman Catholic really growing in Africa? And South America?
The World Youth Day we had in Toronto looked like there were a fair number of young, enthusiastic Catholics worldwide.
Anyway, I hope it doesn’t die, because I know several people who are either becoming Catholic, or thinking seriously about it.
I don’t know much about the abuse scandals, but I wonder how much they’ve affected the RC church’s reputation around the world. Does anyone know how much they affected the RC reputation in Africa, Asia, or South America?
Yes, with a new pope!!
Yes, when and if they let priests marry.
(Women)
World Youth Day in Toronto? I was there! I was there live! And I was very upset when there was a concert overnight and kept me from sleeping! Well, maybe not that upset, because I ended up staying up all night with another guy from my group and two really cute girls, and we went over well. . . . don’t worry, it stayed PG. It was a church trip, after all.
Umm, yeah, I don’t have anything else to add to this thread, but that got me really excited to see somebody else had been there.
At the risk of venturing into the Opinion category (where, IMHO, this belongs):
Declaring bankruptcy to duck liability is not exactly “doing a lot”. Has any Diocese (sp?) actually said “We have a moral, ethical, and religious burden to the abused, and will liquidate assets, and assume any burden to compensate the victims”?
The RCC has billions in real estate alone - declaring bankruptcy is not their only option, and hiding behind the “we don’t really own it, an entirely different, autonomous, entity which we can’t control, does” is not the actions of an honorable person, business, or church.
(waits for the predictable outrage and obfusication which will certain follow this)